Here I am trying to create the most enjoyable Hellfire roster on the entire Earf, and you just waltz in here LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO ENTERTAIN YOURSELF!?
Well, that’s awesome because that is why I got here before you to wrote another article on roster creation.
It’s not a well hidden fact that I love Emma Frost. It is a much LESS hidden fact that AMG released a card called My Hellfire Club for Marvel Crisis Protocol that allows you to turn Emma into a leader for your game. I mean this kind of stuff practically writes itself guys. In a strange way she has become the leader of an “unaffiliated” faction, and I have to say that the fun potential here is very promising.
Fun stonks are in fact, up.
I had to take a step away from completive Marvel Crisis Protocol, and I honestly have really come to appreciate certain parts of the game more in the process.
I want to be Professional Casually……….see what I did there….that’s the name of the network that hosts my articles…….I will explain it to you later.
Creating my own version of the Hellfire Club really breaks open the dam of creative opportunities, but also lets me play the game how I would like to play it. I think that Emma and her leadership represent one of the best things you could possibly do for a game like MCP. AMG have effectively created the ability for you to make a team of literally whoever you want. While I think that this means it can make some very easily exploitable combos, lets just assume we are here so that both people can enjoy the game.
One of my own personal gripes with MCP is that whenever I play the game I have had trouble turning off the part of my brain that tells me I NEED to optimize every character I bring and ever card that I take. This isn’t an issue with the game design itself, but I have noticed that even at the lowest levels of where this game is played, people are always subtly pulled in this direction. This is where The Hellfire Club comes into the picture. This is the affiliation where you can break many of the roster creation rules in such a way that you can bring what you keep telling yourself isn’t fully practical just so you can grab that W by using Hulk for the 5,000,000,000 time.
Lets analyze this card. Every ROUND, not turn, we can say at the end of an allied characters activation that we want to have a club meeting. Emma tells everyone standing near or holding an objective token that they did a really good job and she throws them some super-powered catnip that gives them a power and heals a boo boo. If they are not doing a good job and not contesting any kind of token, she tells them that the anti-fun police have shown up and they demand a health and power so that Emma can use it.
Talk about some AGRESSIVE Human Resourcing.
One of the best parts of the card is not even in that little text box though. This card stipulates that you can use any character in the game since you can always declare unaffiliated at the point you use the card. The top of the card says that as long as you are running unaffiliated you can declare you are playing Hellfire and slap this card down while you send your rival to the shadow realm.
This is a very powerful ability in itself and I think that this can easily be overlooked. At time of writing, you are allowed to bring every single character except for Dormammu in your squad since Emma knows how to properly invest in a very strong PR AND HR department. Mr. Dormammu just never returns any emails.
What a jerk.
So, who can we take? Yes.
One of the coolest things you can do with Hellfire is you essentially have full creative control on the kind of roster theme you want. The two main archtypes are “control” and “attrition” playstyles. The one thing we must consider is that in every single Hellfire Club game you play, you must include an Emma. (Unless they release different versions of the Hellfire Club later of course.) Lets look at The White Queen first before we even start to consider what kind of team we should be bringing to help her out.
Looking at her character card, the HOPE is that most of the time she is going to be in normal form. I maintain the thought that going into Diamond form in most situations is going to be a detriment unless you have a plan. In my mind, she only goes into Diamond form if someone walks up to her and asks for some change. This would lend itself to a more control focused character. This means that no matter how you decide to lean with this team, you are always going to be pulled slightly in the direction of a control team since the model that is CONSTANTLY going to be there is a control-focused model. Thankfully, I think she suits that style of play very well.
In life, I think it is always better to run with strengths than to fight against weaknesses, so I think we should make a more control focused team. I think the leadership helps with this since most control mechanics in MCP are power driven since you find it mostly on throws or a character advancing superpower. Lets see what kind of trouble we can cause.
It should be noted that I am not planning on making the most lean and mean list with this. These choices are going to be going through the lens of characters that I actually want to play and characters I actually read about comic bookwise. Honestly, this might be a good thing for you, dear reader, since you can look at what I do and think about characters that could fill specific roles and tasks more efficiently if you are looking to go to an event and smash your opponent into dust. I, on the other hand, want to make the TWHIP noise whenever I move my Spider-Man model.
With that out the the way, lets start with the core concept that we talked about in the previous Doofus Dojo article. Since we are thinking control, we need to bring characters that fit that arch-type well. Let me bring up a few characters you have probably not heard about for a long time.
Mr. Mister Sinister has a very strange reputation in this game. Everyone that I have talked to has told me that they don’t think he is bad, but they don’t ever take him. What a sad situation for one of the most interesting villains in the X-Men comic mythos. Why do I take him? Well, we should discuss that in a tactics article on the internet……..
Oh wait……
Mr. Sinister’s weakness is that he really has no way to generate power for his, honest-to-goodness, amazing suite of superpowers. Such Fun Little Playthings is quiet an amazing superpower when you look at it in a vacuum. It’s a 2 power advance at range 3. One of the things that makes Hulk amazing is his 2 cost throw, and that is at range 2. One of the obvious differences is that Hulk generates 3 power a turn just for existing, and has a builder that will just reduce enemy characters to bits of bone and buttz spread over the map. The only source of power generating for Sinister, other than being punched in the face, is a barely serviceable strike whose only redeeming feature is that it is against energy defense. This is especially problematic since his entire existence is based on being able to use his amazing Genetic Splice range 4 beam.
So why bring him? Well, in Hellfire Club we have the opportunity to make sure that he constantly has access to an extra power that could potentially allow him to shoot his beam twice. Even if you are only hitting a single character with this beam you are going to just guarantee that you are getting 2 genetic tokens. These are great for his Cloning Banks card, or giving him some durability since it gives you two free health with Engineered Perfection. Sinister is one of those characters that could potentially run the game and dunk on people if anything happened with his one weakness, but is what makes him so interesting.
Mr. Sinister’s jobs in this list is to be tanky when he can be with his tokens, provide samples for Cloning Bank if we bring the card, and to move people with Such Fun Little Playthings to get us victory points. It is unlikely that he will be able to do all 3 of these every game, but we know he can do these things when he need him to.
We are 8 threat in, and I think a well-rounded 3 threat model would give us an amazing base to work from. This allows us to splash in any direction we want based on the tactical situation. Thankfully, no one splashes like Hellfire baaaaabyyyyy.
What is there to say about Lizard that hasn’t been said already? This guy was practically made for Hellfire Club. No matter the situation, Emma is gonna love having Dr. Conners around. If she has a bunch of boo boos and wants some health she can make Lizzy McGizzy pay his club dues and give her a health. THEN his healing factor is just gonna give it right back after his activation. I would attempt to try and use the Hellfire Club card the activation before you plan on going with Lizard so that you aren’t sitting there exposed. Even if you are not using him as a healing potion, the fact that Lizard will be healing another health for your opponent to have to thick hide through could be the epitome of frustration.
Lizard is great and works with the affiliation so well it’s almost impossible for me to imagine a roster without him. His amazing price tag of 3 keeps him in the running for always being around to help out team building, but also just continuing to score you points just by being a big doofus standing on your opponent’s points. He also works well with many tactic cards since he isn’t particularly greedy with his own power, and healing factor gives him access to Xceptional healing.
Seriously, whoever made this character deserves like a really, really nice hat as a reward. I love this character and the model continues to be one of the best in the entire MCP range.
Now the beautiful thing about Hellfire is that you can build it so many different ways and honestly I don’t think anyone would be wrong unless you invite Dormamu. In which case………you do you bro…..because that might actually work as a dual affiliated list.
With all of this said, I must leave and return to my planet. I hope some of this was insightful, and in the next article I think we can talk about splashes and how they might interact with some of the suspected tactics cards.
Remember you can always pick up some of these amazing models at Bearded Dragon Games and if you use the code PCME10 at checkout, a hand will reach out of your computer screen, and give you the best high-five of your entire life. Be warned however, that the hand will be exceptionally hot and could potentially melt your brain due to how awesome it is.
Also, if you need paint to cover all of your models don’t forget you can get the AMAZING Pro Acyrl paint from Monument Hobbies and using the code PROFESSIONALCASUAL will give you ANOTHER discount of 15% off of that order. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE.
Not looking like a doofus article? MORE LIKE DISCOUNT CITY!
Thanks for reading to this point guys and I will talk to you later. Make sure you reach out at Dr. D#4340 if you have any ideas for articles or you want to gush about the discounts for a little while. You can always email me at Furypainting@gmail.com!
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